Ryan says: Back in the mid-'80s, gamers didn't have a whole lot of information sources. Oftentimes, you went to the local Toys 'R' Us or Kay Bee Toys, you picked something off the wall that looked cool, and you took it home to find out whether it was worth the cash. Every new game purchase was really a roll of the dice -- and in 1987, the original Castlevania was one such roll my family and I took.

And what a roll it was: Simon Belmont's side-scrolling quest to rid the world of Count Dracula (a task that he and his successors seemingly failed at time and time again, judging from the dozens of resulting sequels) went on to become one of the all-time NES classics. The vampire lord's castle was apparently constructed as a preemptive death-trap for any would-be heroes, as everything from the entryway to the subterranean dungeons to Drac's clock tower coffin-chamber was crawling with every kind of horror-story beastie a child's mind could conjure up. Zombies, fish-men, skeletons, undead axe-knights, and skull-shaped cannons lurked at every step of Belmont's journey, all punctuated by some of the very best and most frequently remixed musical themes in videogame history (with level 1's "Vampire Killer" and level 3's "Wicked Child" being the most beloved).

And, like many of the most memorable early NES games, Castlevania was fiendishly difficult. For those who played but never finished the game, I bet I can accurately predict where at least 90 percent of you threw your hands up in frustration: the right-to-left-scrolling hallway in level 5, just before the Grim Reaper boss fight. This corridor -- yanked straight from the ninth circle of Hell and inserted into your TV -- is one of the hardest sections of any videogame in existence, featuring axe-knights and flying Medusa heads (oh god, the Medusa heads...) working together to drive you into a fit of murderous rage, thanks to how near-impossible they render your continued survival. And if, by sheer luck, you manage to get past that, Death himself shows up to fill the screen with half a dozen scythes and send your ass right back to the beginning of that corridor. For the record, I beat this (and the ensuing final level -- which was a comparative cakewalk) once and only once. What a great game... but what a mind-numbingly difficult one.